


Upon Reflection,

by Merkwerkee



Category: Void Jumpers
Genre: Magical Items, Panic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27373135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merkwerkee/pseuds/Merkwerkee
Summary: Bryn's mother gave her a powerful little artifact that shows the true reflection of a person.This would be a little more reassuring if you knew who and what, exactly, you were...





	Upon Reflection,

Tag almost missed it, at first. It was such a little thing.

To be fair, there was a lot going on. A person from Bryn’s childhood, _here_? Experiments done on elemental-human hybrids? Twenty thousand leagues of sea slowly starting to invade the hallway outside of the lab? That was like twenty different levels of awful all trying to crowd his brain at once.

All of it dropped away for a single crystallized instant when he saw Bryn lean down next to Fresca with her compact open.

Tag had still been reeling from his confrontation with his half-dad when Bryn’s mother had given her the powerful little artifact. _Something that shows a person’s true face,_ her mother had said, and it’d been hard to miss the first time Bryn had looked into it. He’d been in a position to see the brilliant light of the Summoner that he’d first seen in the deep phase state less than half an hour earlier, and it had still been enough to drive the air from his lungs - and a paralyzing spike of fear into his brain.

 _You **are** one of us,_ his half-dad had told him, _you just don’t remember_.

He had rejected the notion at the time, but a little seed of _doubt_ had planted itself in his head. He was Tag, Parallel to a Fire Summoner, _human_. He was not some all-consuming juggernaut here to destroy existence, not some weird and terrifying form of blackened ichor hardened into something that shouldn’t exist in this reality. Two hands, two feet, one head, a slightly goofy-looking face - that was him, that was Tag. Just a human.

But.

Asahel Keturah Pipe-Wolferstan had claimed to be a sort of father to him. What kind of human had a thing like that for a dad? Even a half-dad?

Tag could just see Fresca’s reflection in the compact. Her form looked washed out, faded in a way that spoke of not enough substance to make a whole person, which would have been concerning enough on its own. Tag, however, could see something else in her that made his blood freeze; thin threads of ichor, none of them big enough to be a whole snake but still very much present in her body that pulsed sluggishly in time with her heartbeat. He wasn’t sure if Bryn could see them or not, couldn’t remember if the mirror worked for just the holder or each viewer separately, but he felt a chill pass through him at what she might see if she looked at him with that artifact.

Bryn stood up from Fresca and turned to face them. “Do any of you want to use this thing? I wouldn’t use it on any of you without your permission, it just seems like an invasion of privacy,” she said in that frank and honest way of hers and Tag exhaled an internal sigh of relief. He could refuse-

“Sure, I could do with some rouge,” Puq said brightly as he took the mirror. Tag slid a glance over to Rex, and saw the interest in her eyes as well. He knew in that instant, without a shred of doubt, that if this continued then Rex would want to look into the compact as well - and then they would expect him to.

Tag didn’t know what he’d see if he did. Maybe he would see just his face; maybe he would see the plain human face with its plain human eyes and plain human nose and plain human mouth. Maybe he was only Tag, human kid. 

But. 

Maybe it would show something else. Maybe he _wasn’t_ just Tag.

_And that idea terrified him most of all._

“I’m just, sorry, I’m just - I’m trying really hard to be a hero and cool, but I just can’t stop thinking about how-” _how much he didn’t want to know if he wasn’t really human_ "-how far below the surface we are, and the fact that there is water pouring in outside this lab door.“

Rex, Bryn, and Gwennaig all turned to stare at the door while Puq closed the compact and look a little sad - in as much as a huge proto-humaniform lump of Void crystal could look sad, anyway - and Tag felt some of the tension inside of him release. He felt a little bad about talking over Puq’s difficulties, and rushed to try and fix his error in speaking over what the elemental was going through.

"Puq, I want you to get separated if you want to get separated. I, ah, want to get rid of this - of this slug-worm, but I think we’re in a pinch y'all.”

Puq handed the compact silently back to Bryn, who tucked it away inside her robes before Gwennaig started to speak again. Tag let himself go a little limp with relief. On the one hand, having a confirmation that he was human through and through would be a relief; on the other hand, if he saw something _else_ in the mirror…

If he saw something else in the mirror, then he _wouldn’t_ just be Tag.

_And that was the worst thought of all._


End file.
